Cloak Bag: Shoot With the Camera Still Inside

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Cloak Bag: Shoot With the Camera Still Inside

The Cloak Bag is a camera bag that lets you take pictures whilst your camera is still inside. It also doesn't look anything like a normal camera bag, making it doubly secure if you're a vulnerable traveler on vacation.

Like all the best niche products, the shoot-through bag was born of specific need. After two near misses in Buenos Aires, co-inventor Robert Merrill was afraid to take his DSLR out for fear of theft, so when he got back to Florida, he went to work. The Cloak Bag is designed to keep the camera protected and out of site, yet you can quickly flip it open and shoot with the camera still inside. A strap replaces your actual camera strap, and then the case itself hooks onto it with Velcro and a screw in the tripod-mount. The bottom of the bag zips open and folds inside when you want to shoot. In this mode, it looks like any other shoulder bag.

To shoot, you flip open the top (held in place with magnets) and your fingers slot inside through a gap to reach the dials and shutter release. If you need to zoom of focus manually, there is another zipper to gain access to the lens from the side.

Even if not fearing pickpockets and scam-artists, I like that you can have the camera ready to go but still protected from bumps (just don't forget the front is open and put the camera down on wet ground). And at $50, it's not much more than other day bags. The Cloak Bag is for DSLRs-only, and will fit cameras as big as Canon's 5D MkII and Nikon's D700 – in short, anything smaller than a bulky pro camera.